Saturday, 13 April 2013

INVESTING IN PEOPLE

On a plane
to Launceston, Tasmania from Sydney recently an older bloke sat down in the
aisle seat of my row. I was seated in the window seat and the space between us
was empty. As I usually do I began to gather 'intel' to see what I could deduce
about him. This is something I picked up partially through being a soldier and
the saying 'time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted' although not totally
relevant in this case, often pops into my head.

As soon as
he sat down, off came the brown desert boots, a hole in one of his dark blue
socks. A green fleece vest sat upon a stripy blue faded T-shirt which stretched
slightly over his stomach. The grey in his beard, thin hair and clothes made
him seem for all the world, unassuming. A man of the same era as my father.

We struck
up a conversation after I enquired to the length of the flight and it
progressed onto where we were from. Don it turns out worked at a bible college
in Launceston and had moved there about 6 years ago from Whyalla, South
Australia. Initially it wasn't permanent but he and his wife loved it so much
they stayed and have no plans to return.

Along with
whatever general duties Don did at his bible college, he also travelled to do
charity type work. He relayed a story to me about a recent trip he took with
some other members of his christian church to Africa to deliver motorcycles to
ministers in the area. It seems that the ministers areas can comprise of
several hundred kilometers and they're the main source of not only redemption
for the soul but also medicines, medical assistance and counseling. So this
small band of the faithful flew into Uganda to pick up a bunch of slow and
small but cheap and reliable, 100cc Chinese made motorcycles. The mission, to
deliver these bikes to the ministers in the Democratic Republic of Congo to use
as transport around their parishes. A trip of about 800km over mainly dirt
roads. Truely an epic and slow journey through extremely hostile country which
took two weeks to complete. After passing through one check point on their
journey a truck a ways behind them was opened up on by soldiers with machine
guns, killing the driver. When I asked Don why, he replied that the driver
probably rubbed them the wrong way. I guess that's one way to put it.

Whilst in
the DRC and staying in a city called Isiro , which has had documented cases of
Ebola, Don realized that the system of charity that many of the poorer families
were getting by on was floored. So with some locals of influence including
nurses and a judge and using his own money, Don instigated a loan system. When
I enquired as to how well it worked a smile spread across his ruddy cheeked
face and he told me of a woman who came to borrow $15. With this $15 she bought
a pot and ingredients to make batches of food. She set up a stand on the side
of the road and sold her food. With the money she made, she paid back her loan
and bought some small cooking utensils. She returned to borrow $25 shortly
after and with that she bought a sheet of plastic so that her customers could eat
in the shade, some more ingredients for cooking and selling and could even
afford to send her children to school. The school system is free but you can't
go unless you can afford to buy the uniform and books. In other words it worked
brilliantly. By giving the people with purpose and plans or small businesses
better access to more money than they would usually see and making them
responsible for it as a loan, they were not only helping the individuals but
assisting in the growth of the community and even getting the money back to be
reinvested.

After
returning home Don discovered a book called "The bank of Bob", about
a man funnily enough named Bob who decided to find out if money he'd been
donating was being used as intended and if it had helped. Bobs book led Don to
an organization named Kiva.

Now Kiva is
a totally not for profit organization established to help those in need all
over the globe. What makes Kiva different though is that its very much like the
system that Don set up in Isiro. Instead of making a donation you provide a
loan to a person or group who have made a request through their local Kiva
connected institution. Instantly I was skeptical about how these loans were
repaid and what if they weren't. The loan amount however, the smallest being
$25, is so insignificant that if its not paid back then so be it. I'd consider
it a donation to some one in greater need than myself. Kiva's website boasts
though that 99.01% of loans have been repaid and they've made in excess of $420
million dollars worth of loans since their inception, with 100% of the loan
amount going to the applicant.

As soon as
i could i jumped on to the kiva website and threw caution to the wind and made
quite a large loan to a group of women in Guatemala to assist in their business
and in sending their children to school. That's right, you can even choose who
your loan goes to. I'm totally blown away by the idea and love it to no end.
I'm hoping that this one donation can be recycled and reused to change and
assist in improving the quality of other people's lives.

To be
totally clear I'm not writing to try and sell the idea to anyone but instead
attempting to re-instill faith in our fellow man and woman. Good people are out
there in the world doing good things for other good people and not just putting
more money into another rich company's pocket.

I treasure
the idea of being able to directly help people create and sustain a better life
for themselves and their family.

Thanks to
my chance encounter with a man named Don who read a book by Bob, the bank of
Paul is now open for business.

Tuesday, 9 April 2013

Recently I had the opportunity to spend a little time with
some AMAZING women.

These women just blow me away.
They're not women of industry
or politics or even thriving women of corporate development but these women are
strong and I don't just mean mentally.

These women are physically superior to some men that I’ve
encountered in the military and back that up with an emotional strength that I
hope that I can one day replicate.

Very early on in my recovery I was hopping around the
Victoria Barracks Army gym in Paddington, Sydney.Literally hopping around because I had just lost my leg and
at that point didn't have a prosthetic. My good friend Brock drove me there
every day so that I could relearn how to train, it was also great therapy for
my mind.

One day out of the blue a pretty female soldier with a big
smile and even bigger bright blue eyes approached me and apologised for staring
at me. I was understandably taken aback. I was at the time extremely
self-conscious and had developed a technique to deal with all the stares, where
if I didn't look at anyone then they weren't looking at me. Yet, here was this
woman bolt upright in my face apologising for staring. I looked away and mumble
an uncomfortable response of, “It's ok, no worries”.But she continued and said to me that she had only been
admiring my eyes and was just having a perv.I was shocked, embarrassed and secretly pretty chuffed that
I was getting checked out, especially when I wasn’t at the time feeling very
good about myself.

Three years on and this same women who took strength from
seeing me start my training is now a strong independent single mother and
working as part of Brisbane's Soldier Recovery Centre at Enoggera Army base.
Not only raising her own child after a physically and mentally abusive
relationship but also doing her best to develop a system to get injured,
wounded and ill soldiers back to work with the help of a small undermanned and
under equipped team.

I recently had the opportunity to donate some time to speak
to this group and share my story and my tools and techniques of physical and
mental recovery, thanks solely to this woman’s belief in me. I gave a group
presentation and then had some time to chat with just the soldiers. We finished
the day with some fitness therapy at Crossfit Michelton. A “box” owned and run
by Phillip Cosgrove, the son of ex CDF General Peter Cosgrove. Corporate key
note speaking is what I do now as a fulltime job since transferring to the Navy
Reserves Diving team but the greatest reward of this job is the time it allows
me to try and help those most in need, our wounded, ill and injured soldiers
for example. The following night this woman secured her absolute strength in my
mind by competing in the open Crossfit games and performing admirably.

I took along to these games a friend of mine who is also a
young strong single mother. A mother who has raised her child through absolute
brutality to herself. Through out the Crossfit games, this young pretty mother
and her passionate child screamed support for competitors that they didn't even
know, actually drowning out others around them, especially when cheering for
the girls. They have a bond unbelievably strong not just built between mother
and daughter but secured between every woman and themselves, whether they know
them or not. A bond so strong because the mother has had every bone in her face
broken, because she has been choked unconscious, because she has had to be the
unwavering rock so that her daughter will never have to be afraid as she was. I
had the pleasure of admiring how this small unconventional family operated and
couldn't help but become wrapped up in it. I learnt that a young child could
have a heart so big that when she found out animals were hurt in our world, she
shed actual tears for them. That a mother could love and want to protect her
child so much that they learnt and practised martial arts together and have
bond that even when I tried to give the daughter a present for her and her mum,
she still felt guilty and questioned me.

A nine year old girl said to me, “money is to be earnt, not
to be given'.

About Me

On February 11th, 2009 I was on exercise in Sydney Harbour between Garden Island and Mrs Macquarie’s Chair when I was attacked by a massive bull shark resulting in the loss of my right leg and right hand. In a race against time my mates hauled me from the water providing emergency first aid and rushed me to the wharf to await the paramedics.

Today i'm back surfing, diving, running and and training in the gym with the help of specially made prosthetics.

Improvise, Adapt & Overcome... a mantra I learnt when I first joined the Australian Army has become my mantra for every day life. It is a lesson that we each owe to ourselves to help us make the best of our lives.